LONG ISLAND (PIX11/DC News Now/WGNO)— A Tulane University student and her sister died while vacationing with their family in the Hamptons earlier this week, university officials announced. Around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, crews responded to a fire in Noyac in Eastern Long Island, where they found a home fully engulfed in flames.
Firefighters found the two victims, Jillian Wiener and Lindsay Wiener, inside the home. Medics took them to the hospital where they died. Their parents, Lewis and Alisa, and their brother, Zach, also were taken to the hospital. They are expected to survive.
According to a news release, Zach, Jillian, and Lindsay slept on the home’s second floor, and Lewis and Alisa on the first floor. The sound of glass breaking woke up Lewis who started telling the rest of his family to get out of the house. Lewis and Alisa were able to get out of the home but noticed the children still were missing. That’s when Lewis attempted to go back into the house, but the flames were too strong.
Zach escaped through a second-story window but Jillian and Lindsay could not get out.
On Friday night, a vigil with close family and friends surrounded the family’s Maryland home. A neighbor, Mark Kilner, told ABC affiliate WJLA, that he is beside himself with grief.
“Our sons grew up together, our daughters grew up together. They are the salt of the earth. They are the most generous, thoughtful, loving, helpful people I know,” Kilner explained. “Everybody in the neighborhood knows them, everybody in the neighborhood loves them.”
On Friday, Tulane University, where Lindsay was preparing to enter her sophomore year, released a statement upon the news of the tragedy, calling the loss ‘unimaginable.’ A business major and a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, Lindsay was described with two words — joy and passion.
“This description is apparent in the impact that Lindsay had on our campus. Though she had only been at Tulane for a year, she touched the lives of so many members of our community,” a spokesperson said, adding “We are united in this time of sorrow with all those who loved Lindsay.”
Funeral services are planned for the sisters on Monday, August 8. The service will also be live streamed, according to the Washington Hebrew Congregation. The university held a special celebration of Lindsay’s life on August 7 for the Tulane community.